On The Shoulders of Pygmies

Been looking at Jo Nova’s site and read her thankyou to the likes of Roger Harrabin for their part in her success after winning the ‘Bloggies’ Lifetime Achievement award:

She said:

I’d like to thank especially, the Mainstream Media, without which I would have hardly any traffic. I dedicate this win today to the science journalists in the ABC, BBC, CBC, CBS or CNN, and to Roger Harrabin, Andy Revkin and George Monbiot — all of whom make it so easy for skeptical blogs to flourish. Their promotion of logical fallacies, one-sided reports, and rank name-calling paves the way, en masse for hundreds of thousands of disappointed, thoughtful, inquisitive readers to hunt online for something better.

If science journalists were good scientists or good journalists skeptical blogs would not be one of the largest single categories on the world wide web.

No need to add any more to that really except a reminder that it was climate sceptic websites that pretty much swept the board……

29 Responses to On The Shoulders of Pygmies

Be interesting what funding models these blogs are using and to what extent they involve public compulsion.
They can’t all be in pay of Big Oil.
And even if they were, it would seem they are anyway being hunted on a voluntary basis by audiences seeking something better than £4Bpa apparently provides.
The future of trusted, transparent reporting driven by popular choice is an exciting one. But it doesn’t seem to include the BBC’s contribution or uniques in other ways.

Makes an absolute mockery of those spurious, entirely unfounded claims continually made by CAGW apologists that sceptics are somehow ‘in the pay of big oil’.

If you really want to weep yourself to sleep try looking up how much the likes of WWF, Greenpeace and Ofam and assorted other bottom-feeders sucking at the teat of CAGW get in handouts (again, public money) from the UN and EU every year. Most people are not even aware that these CAGW-championing ‘charidees’ are in receipt of taxpayer money to the tune of £millions every year – just Google for their yearly accounts. Staggering.

Jo Nova does a great job and I’ve happily donated to her excellent site several times over the years. And I’m very proud and glad to have done so. And I will most assuredly do so again.

3,000 to 1?
That would be what the BBC is prone to call a ‘split’ then, using that unique maffymatix of theirs.
I too am an appreciative consumer of Ms. Nova’s work.
She is thorough, fair and not averse to humour.
No wonder she is anathema to those who operate on a very different basis.

There was an ongoing spat last year between the GWPF and Sir Paul Nurse – he of ‘science is settled’ who heads the Royal Society (motto: ‘on the word of no-one’) following an open attack by Nurse on Lawson in a lecture in Melbourne because Andrew Montford, a colleague of Lawson’s, dared to criticise the way ‘climate science’ was being conducted and especially the ‘settled’ stance being taken by Nurse in the Royal Society’s name.

and there are links to earlier correspondence in which Nurse demands clarification from Lawson on how the GWPF is funded as he suspects it’s acting as a ‘lobby group’ (for….? – ‘Big Oil’ could be the only inference). You would think reading the exchanges that Lawson is the scientist and Nurse the politician.

Needless to say Nurse declines Lawson’s offer for scientists from both sides to debate and instead condescendingly offers scientists to ‘advise’ the GWPF as ‘it seems to have lost its way’. The man’s arrogance is breathtaking and his unsuitability for the role is blatantly obvious to all who believe that science is an open discipline in which challenge, even if it is from a minority of one, should be welcomed.

In future, An effigy of Roger Harrabin should be preserved as an exibit in a science Museum.

As an example of the BBC’s idea of trying to pass off left-wing Environmental activists as “the best scientific experts“, so as to fob off scientists who complained to the BBC, about the use of lies and deception and the promotion of scientific fraud.

But it is interesting to note that it is statements by the BBC, that go beyond that of the corrupt IPCC, that seem to be the key, to the future destruction of the BBC.

It looks like that is why Lord Hall was shoed in as director general, to keep a lid on the cess pool, as long as possible.

But then when will the dam burst, I can only guess, but the stories in the Daily Mail seem to be gradually ramping up and up, so it seems that the more serious stories that I am hearing, are still to come.

The key seems to be the fact that a government committee is discovering that lots of scientists have been fobbed off by the BBC complaints process, by unscientific lies, not even supported by the IPCC consensus.

Do you know something, “John in Cheshire”, I had not heard of this “entity” either, but do you know what I went and did? Why, I simply put the name into Google and lo an behold, quite an interesting few hours reading opened up before my very eyes.
Is it better to have a “view” like “John in Cheshire”? = “Well, I never heard of that so it must be worthless! ‘Cos I am John in Cheshire and I read many blogs and therefore *I*, John in Cheshire, know wot is worth ever knowing!”

However … On going back over the whole thread once more I’m afraid “John in Cheshire” still comes out as a self-absorbed, quite ignorant prig when he stated:
“”Am I supposed to have heard of this entity? I haven’t and I read many blogs; her androgynous name hasn’t cropped up once.”

The fact that he much later attempted to qualify his self-absorbed, ignorant statement with this:
“Apologies, I’m in a bad mood tonight.”
Well, that on second reading does *not* absolve his original comment. His original comment was rude and ignorant. Bad tempers do not excuse rudeness nor ignorance.

So, Stewart, on second thoughts, my original comments stand about this rude and ignorant poster.
QED

I think the advice of ‘thinking it through’ applies to John as much as any . If, in better mood, he had thought to search ‘Jo Nova’ or waited for someone else to ( I my self cannot recall a post referring to her) his response ,if any,would likely have been different .He in fact went off ‘half cock, but found the self control to stop digging and admit his fault.
And that I think is admirable
( Oh and I very much included myself in that all)

Henry, a final post : You are correct, it was gratuitously ignorant of me, I did go off half-cocked and I regret my original posting. Thanks to all who have pointed this out to me. I have now googled Jo Nova and of course she is not who I had expected her to be, so apologies to her too.